Chapter I the Falling Biplane

"She sure is a fine boat, Dick."

"And she can go some, too!"

"Glad you like her, fellows," replied Dick Hamilton, to the remarks of his chums, Paul Drew and Innis Beeby, as he turned the wheel of a new motor-boat and sent the craft about in a graceful sweep toward a small dock which connected with a little excursion resort on the Kentfield river.

"Like her! Who could help it?" asked Paul, looking about admiringly at the fittings of the craft. "Why, you could go on a regular cruise in her!"

"You might if you kept near your base of supplies," remarked Dick.

"Base of supplies!" laughed Innis. "Can’t you forget, for a while, that you’re at a military school, old man, and not give us the sort of stuff we get in class all the while?"

"Well, what I meant," explained the young millionaire owner of the motor-boat, "was that you couldn’t carry enough food aboard, and have room to move about, if you went on a very long trip."

"That’s right, you couldn’t," agreed Paul. "And of late I seem to have acquired the eating habit in its worst form."

"I never knew the time when you didn’t have it," responded Dick. "I’m going to give you a chance to indulge in it right now, and I’m going to profit by your example."

"What’s doing?" asked Innis, as he straightened the collar of his military blouse, for the three were in the fatigue uniforms of the Kentfield Military Academy, where Dick and his chums attended. Lessons and practice were over for the day, and the young millionaire had invited his friends out for a little trip in his new motor-boat.

"I thought we’d just stop at Bruce’s place, and get a sandwich and a cup of coffee," suggested Dick. "Then we can go on down the river and we won’t have to be back until time for guard-mount. We’ll be better able to stand it, if we get a bite to eat."

"Right you are, old chap!" exclaimed Paul, and then he, too, began to smooth the wrinkles out of his blouse and to ease his rather tight trousers at the knees.

"Say, what’s the matter with you dudes, anyhow?" asked Dick, who, after glancing ahead to see that he was on the right course to the dock, looked back to give some attention to the motor.

"Matter! I don’t see anything the matter," remarked Innis in casual tones, while he flicked some dust from his shoes with a spare pocket handkerchief.

"Why, you two are fussing as though you were a couple of girls at your first dance," declared Dick, as he adjusted the valves of the oil cups to supply a little more lubricant to the new motor, which had not yet warmed up to its work. "Innis acts as though he were sorry he hadn’t come out in his dress uniform, and as for you, Paul, I’m beginning to think you are afraid you hadn’t shaved. What’s it all about, anyhow? Old man Bruce won’t care whether you have on one tan shoe and one black one; or whether your hair is parted, or not."

Then Dick, having gotten the motor running to his satisfaction, looked toward the dock which he was rapidly nearing in his boat. The next moment he gave a whistle of surprise.

"Ah, ha! No wonder!" he cried. "The girls? So that’s why you fellows were fixing up, and getting yourselves to look pretty. And you let me monkey with the motor, and get all grease and dirt while you— Say, I guess we’ll call off this eating stunt," and he swung over the steering wheel.

"Oh, I say?" protested Innis.

"Don’t be mean?" added Paul. "We haven’t seen the girls in some time, and there’s three of ’em—"

Dick laughed. On the dock, under the shade of an awning, he had caught sight of three pretty girls from town—girls he and his chums knew quite well. They were Mabel Hanford, in whom Dick was more than ordinarily interested, Grace Knox, and Irene Martin.

"I thought I’d get a rise out of you fellows," the young millionaire went on. "Trying to get me in bad, were you!"

The boat swerved away from the dock. The girls, who had arisen, evidently to come down to the float, and welcome the approaching cadets, seemed disappointed. One of them had waved her handkerchief in response to a salute from Paul.

"Here, take some of this and clean your face," suggested Paul, handing Dick some cotton waste from a seat locker.

"And here’s a bit for your shoes," added Innis, performing a like service. "You’ll look as good as we do."

"What about my hands?" asked Dick. "Think I want to go up and sit alongside of a girl with paws like these?" and he held out one that was black and oily.

"Haven’t you any soap aboard?" asked Innis, for he, like Paul, seemed anxious that Dick should land them at the dock where the girls were.

"Oh, well, if you fellows are as anxious as all that I s’pose I’ll have to humor you," agreed Dick, with a grin. "I dare say Bruce can let me wash up in his place," and he turned the craft back on the course he had previously been holding. A little later the motor-boat was made fast to the float, and the three cadets were greeting the three girls.

"Look out for my hands!" warned Dick, as Miss Hanford’s light summer dress brushed near him. "I’m all oil and grease. I’ll go scrub up, if you’ll excuse me."

"Certainly," said Mabel Hanford, with a rippling laugh.

When Dick returned, he ordered a little lunch served out on the end of the dock, where they could sit and enjoy the cool breezes, and look at the river on which were many pleasure craft.

"Where were you boys going?" asked Grace Knox, as she toyed with her ice-cream spoon.

"Coming to see you," answered Paul promptly.

"As if we’d believe that!" mocked Irene. "Why, you were going right past here, and only turned in when you saw us!"

"Dick didn’t want to come at all," said Innis.

"He didn’t! Why not?" demanded Mabel.

"Bashful, I guess," murmured Paul.

"No, it was because I didn’t want to inflict the company of these two bores on you ladies!" exclaimed Dick, thus "getting back."

There was much gay talk and laughter, and, as the afternoon was still young, Dick proposed taking the girls out for a little jaunt in his new craft He had only recently purchased it, and, after using it at Kentfield, he intended taking it with him to a large lake, where he and his father expected to spend the Summer.

"Oh, that was just fine!" cried Mabel, when the ride was over, and the party was back at the pier. "Thank you, so much, Dick!"

"Humph! You have US to thank—not him!" declared Paul. "He wouldn’t have turned in here if we hadn’t made him. And just because his hands had a little oil on!"

"Say, don’t believe him!" protested the young millionaire. "I had proposed coming here before I knew you girls were on the dock."

"Well, we thank all THREE of you!" cried Irene, with a bow that included the trio of cadets.

"Salute!" exclaimed Paul, and the young soldiers drew themselves up stiffly, and, in the most approved manner taught at Kentfield, brought their hands to their heads.

"’Bout face! Forward—march! " cried Grace, imitating an officer’s orders, and the boys, with laughs stood "at ease."

"See you at the Junior prom!"

"Yes, don’t forget."

"And save me a couple of hesitation waltzes!"

"Can you come for a ride tomorrow?"

"Surely!

This last was the answer of the girls to Dick’s invitation, and the exclamations before that were the good-byes between the girls and boys, reference being made to a coming dance of the Junior class.

Then Dick and his chums entered the motor-boat and started back for the military academy.

"You’ve got to go some to get back in time to let us tog up for guard-mount," remarked Paul, looking at his watch.

"That’s right," added Innis. "I don’t want to get a call-down. I’m about up to my limit now.

"We’ll do it all right," announced Dick. "I haven’t speeded the motor yet. I’ve been warming it up. I’ll show you what she can do!"

He opened wider the gasoline throttle of the engine, and advanced the timer. Instantly the boat shot ahead, as the motor ran at twice the number of revolutions.

"That’s something like!" cried Paul admiringly.

"She sure has got speed," murmured Innis.

On they sped, talking of the girls, of their plans for the summer, and the coming examinations.

"Hark! What’s that?" suddenly asked Paul, holding up his hand for silence.

They were made aware of a curious, humming, throbbing sound.

"Some speed boat," ventured Dick.

"None in sight," objected Paul, with a glance up and down the river, which at this point ran in a straight stretch for two miles or more. "You could see a boat if you could hear it as plainly as that."

"It’s getting louder," announced Innis.

Indeed the sound was now more plainly to be heard.

Paul gave a quick glance upward.

"Look, fellows!" he exclaimed. "An airship!"

The sound was right over their heads now, and as all three looked up they saw, soaring over them, a large biplane, containing three figures. It was low enough for the forms to be distinguished clearly.

"Some airship!" cried Dick, admiringly.

"And making time, too," remarked Innis.

Aircraft were no novelties to the cadets. In fact part of the instruction at Kentfield included wireless, and the theoretical use of aeroplanes in war. The cadets had gone in a body to several aviation meets, and once had been taken by Major Franklin Webster, the instructor in military tactics, to an army meet where several new forms of biplanes and monoplanes had been tried out, to see which should be given official recognition.

"I never saw one like that before," remarked Paul, as they watched the evolutions of the craft above them.

"Neither did I," admitted Dick.

"I’ve seen one something like that," spoke Innis.

"Where?" his chums wanted to know, as Dick slowed down his boat, the better to watch the biplane, which was now circling over the river.

"Why, a cousin of mine, Whitfield Vardon by name, has the airship craze pretty bad," resumed Innis. "He has an idea he can make one that will maintain its equilibrium no matter how the wind blows or what happens. But, poor fellow, he’s spent all his money on experiments and he hasn’t succeeded. The last I heard, he was about down and out, poor chap. He showed me a model of his machine once, and it looked a lot like this. But this one seems to work, and his didn’t—at least when I saw it."

"It’s mighty interesting to watch, all right," spoke Paul, "but we’ll be in for a wigging if we miss guard-mount. Better speed her along, Dick."

"Yes, I guess so. But we’ve got time—"

Dick never finished that sentence. Innis interrupted him with a cry of:

"Look, something’s wrong on that aircraft!"

"I should say so!" yelled Paul. "They’ve lost control of her!"

The big biplane was in serious difficulties, for it gave a lurch, turned turtle, and then, suddenly righting, shot downward for the river.

"They’re going to get a ducking, all right!" cried Innis.

"Yes, and they may be killed, or drowned," added Paul.

"I’ll do what I can to save ’em!" murmured Dick, as he turned on more power, and headed his boat for the place where the aircraft was likely to plunge into the water.

Hardly had he done so when, with a great splash, and a sound as of an explosion, while a cloud of steam arose as the water sprayed on the hot motor, the aircraft shot beneath the waves raised by the rapidly-whirling propellers.

"Stand ready now!"

"Get out a preserver!"

"Toss ’em that life ring!"

"Ready with the boat hook! Slow down your engine, Dick."

The motor-boat was at the scene of the accident, and when one of the occupants of the wrecked airship came up to the surface Dick made a grab for him, catching the boat hook in the neck of his coat.

The next instant Dick gave a cry of surprise.

"Larry Dexter—the reporter!" he fairly shouted. "How in the world— "

"Let me get aboard—I’ll talk when—when I get rid of—of—some of this water!" panted Larry Dexter. "Can you save the others?"

"I’ve got one!" shouted Paul. "Give me a hand, Innis!"

Together the two cadets lifted into the motorboat a limp and bedraggled figure. And, no sooner had he gotten a glimpse of the man’s face, than Innis Beeby cried:

"By Jove! If it isn’t my cousin, Whitfield Vardon!"